ZINES. I like making zines and sharing them, in small ‘reading parties.’ I especially love co-making them, and now, Art & Copy has gathered enough momentum to be a place where this can work very well.
I’m (still) reading and thinking carefully about the value of offline space, and being part of a mature community. Meaning one that has had time to get to know itself.
Lots of people around the world, I’ve met, all through my travels, and now, thankfully, I have been able to connect up four-person small sets of us so that they can also interact together. In closed spaces, mostly online because I live in Phnom Penh. We did have a real life set of things here but the momentum was tough to keep up, to be honest, as the start-stop nature of monthly ateliers made me feel like morphing back to 8- to 12-week ones so that no one feels too much pressure to ‘create something’. We can relax.
I feel good about this. I see that there’s been progression, richness and something more in these latter half sessions we get to have together. Far more interesting than a boring first-date vibe, or Meetup… I have now deleted my Meetup account, no more popping in to new cities to see what’s what. A book club I went to was cancelled. Thankfully I’d only read 37 of the 620 pages, and had been kinda sheepish about showing up for socializing because of that. But, canceled? Canceled. So where is the trust?
TRUST. Takes time, and awareness. I don’t know about you but I don’t like being interrogated… Could be wrong, but it feels very thin, to me, when people are faking it. Fake laughs. Fake interest. Fake, fake, fake. You see it a million miles away especially if you grew up offline, and didn’t invent a virtual persona, or more than one. I did try, but it was flat. I like being me and it’s a lot easier to show up as me, even if it was much easier to make sales and earn higher commissions when I used two of my other aliases. World is like that. OK.
Phnom Penh is a good place to come back to to regroup after big trips. Just back from a ten-day tour to Singapore to put up flyers about zinemaking ateliers, there. Here we are again: with more zines to share in person or virtually if people join my things.
Excited to be hosting this again, with more to talk about. Let’s make zines, too, of course. I’m looking to connect, co-create, converse, and make more. Making Fourth Spaces: offline ones.
Meet me in the fourth place
I used to say let’s meet in the “third place,” which is neither work, nor home. But now, in 2026, i think there’s somewhere else, a fourth place, that makes it possible to exist outside of the workplace, the home, the casual third place where we gather with people we see from time to time. I think we need an intention around getting together, now, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want it to be a hobby. I am ready to meet people who are ready to meet me.
This readiness, I think, to dive into the new, and explore, and be curious, is the common denominator across all of my projects, ever, in all of my time so far making things through Design Kompany, Atelier S P A C E, and Kismuth Books. So, that’s a lot of stuff but it’s always the most curious people who venture out and try new things, here. I like to connect you. With each other.
If this sounds interesting, or you want to explore zining, save the dates for upcoming sessions for co-making Art & Copy. I will share about that at kismuth.com/upcoming. Here are some other links.